


Deteriorate

by heydoeydoey



Series: Punishment [2]
Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:25:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heydoeydoey/pseuds/heydoeydoey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon feels no satisfaction in finally being the one to walk alway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deteriorate

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 2x21 "The Sun Also Rises" and 2x22, "As I Lay Dying". I've taken some liberties with timelines, but let's call it creative license, yeah?

Damon can’t help watching Jeremy at Jenna and John’s funeral.  They haven’t spoken directly since Damon dropped Jeremy off at the ruin with Bonnie after the dance.  Stefan kept Bonnie and Jeremy up-to-date on everything while they hid out, and Damon did his best not to even think about the boy.

Now, it’s impossible.  Now, looking at Jeremy in a suit that’s stretched just a little too tight across his shoulders, the lines of his body wilting with exhaustion that goes beyond sleeplessness, Damon can’t help but want to pull him into his arms and attempt to shield him from some of this.  He’s not foolish enough to think he can make much of a difference, but he wants to do _something_. 

Stefan would tell him he’s fixating on Jeremy to avoid thinking about his own impending death.  Or he would if he weren’t so hell-bent on finding a cure that doesn’t exist, anyway.  Damon resists the urge to roll up his sleeve again, to check the progress of his bite.  He’s not concerned about the fever or the hunger or even the point where he’ll stop recognising his nearest and dearest; what scares him most are the hallucinations.  He’s had a hard enough time beating his past back where it belongs, and it would be more than a little inconvenient for it to start to resurface again.

He has a sleepless night while his arm throbs with pain.  He’d happily cut the damn thing off if he thought it would do any good.  But after watching Rose deteriorate in front of him, he knows better.

 

He walks to the Gilberts’ house without thinking about it.  He hesitates on the porch, before deciding since he’s going to die, he may as well do it with all his amends made.  He doesn’t relish the thought of apologising to Elena for the things he’s done this week, because he isn’t sorry about any of them.  He has plenty of other regrets, but none of them have anything to do with his brother’s girlfriend, for once.

He isn’t surprised when Elena can’t forgive him.  He knows things would have been different if he’d lead with _I’m dying_ , but he can’t bring himself to say it.  He doesn’t want pity.

Jeremy is coming up the stairs as Damon is going down and before he can decide what he’s going to say to the teenager—if anything—his arm gives a particularly nasty throb that radiates all the way to his shoulder and he hisses in surprise, pulling his arm instinctively closer to his body.

Jeremy’s eyes narrow immediately. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m fine.” Damon says as coldly as he can manage, but Jeremy isn’t buying it.  He grabs Damon’s arm roughly and Damon clenches his teeth to keep from crying out in pain.

“Show me.” Jeremy demands.

If it were anyone else, Damon would have responded with a snide comment before walking away.  Because it’s Jeremy, he sits down heavily on the landing and pushes up his sleeve.

Jeremy sits next to him. “Ouch.”

“That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.”

“What happened?”

“Tyler Lockwood.”

Jeremy’s eyes go wide. “Fuck.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Damon, you can’t… _die_.” It’s as if Jeremy has to build himself up to say the word. After the week they’ve all had, Damon doesn’t blame him.

“It seems I can.” Damon sighs.

“There’s nothing you can do?”

“Believe me, kid, if there was a cure I would have found it the first time.”

“There _has_ to be,” Jeremy says, his expression determined. “I’ll call Bonnie and Ric and we’ll find something.”

“There’s nothing to find, Jeremy.” Damon doesn’t mean for it to come out so harshly. Jeremy flinches.

“Are you scared?” Jeremy asks after a moment.

“Terrified.” Damon admits quietly. “Besides, I’m too young to die.”

Jeremy rewards his pathetic joke with a small laugh before his face falls again. “This really sucks.”

“Yeah.  It does.”

“I’m sorry, you know.” Jeremy says softly and Damon doesn’t need to ask what he’s talking about.

 “I’m not.” Damon says.  There’s no harm in being honest now.  There aren’t any consequences left. “Of course, if I’d known I was going to die I wouldn’t have suggested we stop, but otherwise, no regrets.”

Jeremy looks surprised, but before either of them can say anything more, the front door swings open and Ric steps across the threshold, with one duffle bag slung over his shoulder and a second dragging across the ground behind him.

“Oh, good, you two can help me.  My car is full of stuff.”

“Actually, I was just leaving.” Helping Ric unpack is not how Damon intends to spend his last sane hours. “Lots to do today.”

“Damon,” Jeremy protests.

“You’ll be fine, Jer.” Damon says, before getting up and walking out the open door.  He feels no satisfaction in finally being the one to walk away.

***

Damon knows what’s coming.  And because he knows what’s coming, he isn’t going to wait around for death to claim him.  He spent the whole night thinking about it while he wasn’t sleeping, and he knows he’s going to do this on his own terms.  He’s been saving this particular bottle of bourbon for a special occasion anyway.  He’d take more time to savour it, but there’s a voice in the back of his head whispering _do it now, before you lose your nerve._

He slips his ring off with fingers he refuses to acknowledge are shaking. At first, the sun is warm on his face.  Then, it starts to burn.  It seems ridiculously unfair that vampire suicides have to be painful.  Humans at least have pills as an option, like Jeremy’s botched attempt to turn himself.  He shoves the thought of Jeremy away roughly just as Stefan appears in the room.  Damon feels the impact before he understands what Stefan is doing.

Stefan babbles about finding a cure— _hopeless­—_ and why Damon can’t do this to Elena.  Damon wants to scream.  He wants to shout at his brother, wants to break things, wants to kill Tyler Lockwood, wants to laugh at the irony of Stefan worrying about Elena while his brother is dying, wants to cry at the unfairness. He’s _dying._ The least Stefan can do is let Damon do it on his own terms. 

But of course he won’t.  He shoves Damon’s ring back on and makes more meaningless promises about cures.  Stefan will search tirelessly for a solution; of that there is no doubt.  But he won’t find one, and Damon will get worse, steadily losing his pride and his mind.  He shoves away from his brother, leaving him to hunt desperately for an answer he isn’t going to find.

***

First it feels just like a cold, and for an hour or so Damon can actually appreciate the novelty of feeling something he hasn’t felt since he was a human.  As his fever climbs, though, things get steadily worse.  Time blurs as he slips in and out of his past.  In a brief lucid moment, he realises he’s stumbling through town, _starving_ , and knows it’s not good. Before he can do anything, a hallucination claims him again.

Faintly he hears someone calling his name. His whole body _hurts_ and his skin is on fire and someone is holding him up now, pulling him away from all those thudding heartbeats in the middle of town.

 

“Hey, hey, let’s get you out of here,” this voice is familiar and it takes Damon a second to place it.  _Jeremy_.  Relief he can’t explain washes over him, numbing the pain for just a moment.

It’s quiet now.  Quiet enough that Damon can hear that unmistakable click of the bullet leaving its chamber, milliseconds before the gunshot.  Damon knows that sound, knows to be afraid of it.  The last time he heard it, it came from his father’s gun and pain exploded in his chest.  He moves without needing to think, quickly enough that he escapes the bullet.

He smells blood that isn’t his just before he escapes into the darkness.  _Jeremy_.

He hears his name again.  Again, the voice is familiar, but he’s having a harder time hearing it, sifting through the voices in his memory. He collides with someone solid and warm and he can hear her heartbeat thumping loudly in his ears, so she must be human.  But she has Katherine’s face, and Katherine definitely _isn’t_ human.

He blinks, his vision sliding in and out of focus.  Katherine? Elena? Elena.  She’s pulling on his sleeve, so he stumbles after her and then suddenly she isn’t there anymore and he wonders if she was ever there at all. 

 

He’s home.  He doesn’t know what’s real.  Elena or Katherine is there.  If it’s Elena, he should tell her about Jeremy.  If it’s Katherine, he shouldn’t tell her anything.  She’s speaking gently—Elena.  He can’t follow her words. He might be responding.  He doesn’t know if the words are real or in his head.  Just like Jeremy’s blood. 

Elena’s talking loudly now.  Harshly.  No.  Katherine.  Elena and Katherine?  Both.  Or maybe neither.  Maybe he’s already dead.

He smells blood again.  Jeremy?  No.  It doesn’t taste like Jeremy.  Katherine or Elena says something to Elena or Katherine. 

His skin feels cooler.He doesn’t hurt as much. 

 _Please_ , he thinks, _let me die_. 


End file.
